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- O impacto económico da Universidade do Algarve na Região do AlgarvePublication . Silva, joão; Nunes, Rui; Santos, SérgioOs impactos da Universidade do Algarve ao longo dos seus 40 anos de existência têm incidido em diversas dimensões, que vão desde a criação e difusão de conhecimento, a investigação e desenvolvimento, até aos efeitos diretos e indiretos em resultado das despesas efetuadas pela Universidade e por toda a sua comunidade académica na economia da Região do Algarve.
- Performance assessment of primary health care services using data envelopment analysis and the quality-adjusted malmquist indexPublication . De Mattos Capeletti, Nuno; Amado, Carla; Santos, SérgioPrimary Health Care (PHC) is intended to provide a comprehensive response to the patients' health needs. Considering the increasing demand to optimise the use of the available resources while keeping a high-quality standard, it is essential to investigate the health services' performance. We propose a methodology based on the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) technique, examining the volume of activities performed and considering the impact of these activities by using a quality indicator directly related to care outcomes. To perform a longitudinal analysis and observe the changes in quality separately, a Quality-Adjusted Malmquist Productivity Index is implemented. The methodology is illustrated by analysing the performance and the evolution in productivity and quality of the primary care services delivered by the municipalities of the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina from 2008 to 2014. Our findings reinforce the view that adequate planning and structuring of PHC services must consider not only the volume of activity but also the impact of the services delivered.
- Two decades on the MACBETH approach: a bibliometric analysisPublication . Ferreira, Fernando A. F.; Santos, SérgioMACBETH stands for measuring attractiveness by a categorical based evaluation technique. It is a multiple criteria decision analysis technique created by Carlos Bana e Costa and Jean-Claude Vansnick in the early 1990s. Due to both the increasing application of the technique and progress achieved to date, this study aims to conduct a bibliometric literature review on MACBETH. The database for the review contains 192 scientific articles published in scholarly publications indexed in the Scopus database from 1994 to 2016. Although other literature reviews of the technique exist, this study has a different emphasis and uses two distinct citation analysis methods-bibliographic coupling and co-citation-, allowing us to generate new insights regarding some of the most active and influential articles, journals and authors, as well as to reveal rankings, clusters of contributions and collaboration networks. The results obtained are important to enhance our understanding of the technique's anatomy (i.e., its intellectual structure), and can support the identification of new lines of application and development.
- System dynamics in tourism planning and developmentPublication . Sedarati, Pooyan; Santos, Sérgio; Pintassilgo, PedroSystem dynamics (SD) is a method that has the ability to capture the dynamic behavior of a complex system over time. The tourism industry, due to the myriad of interactions among its sectors, can be considered as a complex system. Therefore, SD has drawn the attention of tourism researchers over the last two decades. The goal of this study is to assess the application of the SD method in planning and development of the tourism industry. For this purpose, a systematic literature review was performed and a set of 27 papers was selected. The analysis of the papers shows the applicability of the SD method to address a multitude of different problems. Overall, however, it can be concluded that whilst the SD method has shown considerable potential to provide tourism decision-makers and regulators with tools for strategic and operational policy development at many different levels of analysis, the number of applications in this sector is still limited. Therefore, it is recommended that the use of SD modeling in the tourism industry be extended in order to promote a holistic understanding of the complex issues faced by this industry and to assist in the development of more effective policies.
- Implementation obstacles and strategy implementation failurePublication . Candido, Carlos; Santos, SérgioPurpose – The paper addresses the following question: How do strategy implementation obstacles relate to each other and affect strategy implementation? Method – The research methodology is qualitative and based on an extensive review of the literature and on an in-depth case study analysis. Findings – This paper draws two main conclusions. The first is that the many obstacles that impact the strategy implementation process can interact and be strongly interrelated in dynamic and complex manners. The second is that obstacles can lead to and reinforce other obstacles, eventually forming long chains of blockages. Originality – Strategy implementation remains a difficult task with improbable success. This paper provides a contribution to an explanation on why so many strategy implementation efforts fail. It is one of the very few papers addressing the issue of the relationships between strategy implementation obstacles.
- Development and application of a composite circularity indexPublication . Garrido, Susana; Rodríguez-Antón, José; Amado, Carla; Santos, Sérgio; Dias, Luís C.Resource depletion and environmental pollution are increasingly a matter of concern for their adverse effects on ecosystems, human health, and the economy. Circular Economy (CE) practices can help us address these chal-lenges. This paper proposes a composite circularity index (CI) to assess the level of implementation of CE practices. The main advantage of the proposed index is its ability to combine multiple indicators of circularity for different units operating in a given sector (given as inputs), using a 'Benefit of the Doubt' model. This new model is innovative in the manner it deals with ordinal scales and also by considering both relative and absolute performance indices. These indices are computed using mathematical programming tools, building on ideas from Data Envelopment Analysis models.Although the model can be applied to any sector, this work addresses the hotel industry in particular. The selection of indicators for this CI was based on seven blocks of the Circular Economy Action Plan and a literature review of circular practices. An application of the proposed index is performed by using data from Portuguese and Spanish hotels. The proposed CI allows the identification of the organizations with the best and worst performance in implementing the CE practices and clarifying the benchmarks they could follow to improve their level of circularity. Moreover, the index analysis also provides specific targets for improvement, indicating which circular practices should be improved for the lower performers to reach the implementation levels of the best performers.
- Exploring the potential of Data Envelopment Analysis for enhancing pay-for-performance programme design in primary health carePublication . Kalinichenko, Olena; Amado, Carla; Santos, SérgioIn recent years, implementation of pay-for-performance (P4P) programmes in health care has become a worldwide initiative. However, most P4P programmes incorporate systems of Performance Indicators (PI) without accounting for trade-offs between indicators. This article has two objectives: (1) to develop a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) methodology for performance assessment of primary care providers; and (2) to propose an innovative methodology for P4P contracting based on the DEA assessment results. To achieve the first objective, we modify the standard DEA model to account for the necessary relations between the weights attributed to each PI and domain of performance and to account for the effect of the relevant environmental variables. To achieve the second objective, we combine relative and absolute performance assessments in the elaboration of several bases for reward, and then we link these assessments to a system of graduated rewards. A benchmarking programme is also proposed to contribute to the dissemination of best practices. This article contributes to the literature by proposing an enhanced methodology for performance assessment of primary care providers which can form the basis for P4P rewards planning. The applicability and advantages of the proposed methodology are illustrated with data from Portugal, but it can easily be adapted to different sets of PIs or domains, making it relevant for performance assessment and for P4P reward setting in other contexts and countries.
- Assessment and determinants of the quality of life in portuguese citiesPublication . Barreira, Ana; Amado, Carla; Santos, Sérgio; Andraz, Jorge; Guimaraes, Maria Helenathe quality of life (QoL) in cities has increasingly been used as a symbol of urban success. Studies addressing this issue tend to focus, however, on large cities and/or on cities from different countries. By using a set of data from a single country, comprehending cities with different population sizes and densities, observations for 11 performance dimensions, and an approach combining the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) technique and multivariate regression modeling, this study analyses the QoL of Portuguese cities and explores some of its determinants. the results of this analysis show that both small and large cities can offer high levels of QoL with "transport and accessibility," "safety," "housing," "education," and "culture and entertainment" being the dimensions that most contribute to the QoL assessment. While Lisbon and Oporto (the two largest Portuguese cities) are benchmark cities, some of the highly populated cities located in their Metropolitan Areas present the most potential for improvement in terms of QoL. the results also show that cities located in the hinterland tend to present higher QoL scores than those on the coast. Equally, cities with lower population size and density, those that are district capitals and those with higher per capita current public expenditures present higher levels of QoL. These findings suggest, therefore, that the cities' typology, their population size and density, and their dependence from local governments' public expenditures can significantly contribute to the differences identified in their QoL performance.
- Labor inspectorates' efficiency and effectiveness assessment as a learning path to improve work-related accident preventionPublication . Santos, Antonio J. R.; Santos, Sérgio; Amado, Carla; Rebelo, Efigénio; Mendes, JúlioLabor inspectorates, by monitoring and enforcing labor legislation, giving information and technical advice to employers and employees, promoting awareness-raising campaigns and implementing occupational risk prevention policies, play a fundamental role in promoting safer and healthier working conditions and, ultimately, in reducing the number of work-related accidents. Even so, every year, hundreds of thousands of people die from accidents at work and around 2 million die from occupational diseases, highlighting that considerable room for improvement remains. The identification and sharing of best practices in labor inspection can be a useful first step in this direction. The main purpose of this research is to propose Data Envelopment Analysis as a suitable technique for assessing the performance of labor inspectorates and identifying best practices. The potential of the proposed methodology is tested by using it to assess the efficiency and the effectiveness of the 32 local branches of the Portuguese Authority for Working Conditions, a key player of the Portuguese system of occupational risk prevention, and by exploring its value in identifying best practices and possible paths for performance improvement.
- Comparing the quality of life of cities that gained and lost population: An assessment with DEA and the Malmquist indexPublication . Amado, Carla; Barreira, Ana; Santos, Sérgio; Guimaraes, Maria HelenaThis study compares the quality of life (QoL) of cities that lost population with that of cities that gained population. A unique dataset composed of observations for 11 dimensions of QoL for all mainland Portuguese cities is used. By employing a non-parametric approach (data envelopment analysis), and by using a Malmquist-type index, this study identifies differences in QoL between the group of cities that lost population and the group of cities that gained population, as well as differences within each group. Despite the heterogeneity in cities that shrunk, this group presents, on average, higher QoL than cities that have grown.